This past month, I stood in front of a room full of my students, mostly recent immigrants to the United States. They were taking a national exam that tests English-language learners’ (ELLs) ability to comprehend and work with academic language. I read my students the instructions and then each question, as required, in English. It was the last week of May, and for most students across the country, one of the final weeks of school before summer break. By now, most students have a year’s worth of instruction and practice to prepare for the exam. So why was I looking at a room full of blank stares?

For many of the students testing in my class, it wasn’t the end of the school year; it was their second week of school ever here in the United States. My school, a bilingual G.E.D. and ESL-based charter school in D.C., operates on a trimester system, and we had just begun a new one. Regulations like these are just one of the many examples demonstrating how policies made for a big (and often ineffective) school system run counter to the approach many students need. As an alternative school, it’s imperative for us to allow new immigrants and other disconnected youth to join classes outside of the traditional school calendar; but when those test results are compiled into the national average, outsiders undoubtedly think that my students (and many like them at alternative programs throughout the nation) have learned nothing this year. The truth is, because my students never took a pre-test, their results will likely be thrown out and the only real result of the two days of testing will be some deflated egos and a couple of lost days of instruction.

In every sense, the economies of scale are already working against smaller schools. It’s harder to afford technology, materials, programs, and services that are built for larger school systems. Beyond that, policy frequently encourages educators in the direction of what we know to be bad pedagogy and practice. For example, in D.C., the charter board accountability framework gives more weight to test results from larger classes (seeking bigger sample sizes). That approach, however, pushes schools like ours away from our very mission—providing a more intimate classroom environment for the type of students who need it the most. Both public schools and charters are encouraged by national tests to go faster and shallower, instead of slower and deeper, into content and key skills, preventing educators from the kind of differentiation crucial to our students’ success. The push for implementation of Common Core State Standards could help, but only if its implementation encourages a fundamental shift towards a skill-based approach over a contest-based race. Annual budgeting, test result frameworks, funders, and other factors encourage small and big charters alike to conform to the same practices as big school systems in large part because it makes for less administrative work in synthesizing and interpreting results.

Charter schools began as a way to encourage innovation in hopes that if given a degree of flexibility, they could find new best practices to apply in the public school system. Instead, policymakers dove into this new world of ever-proliferating charter schools with no mechanism or policy that determines which charter school experiments have worked by objective measures, nor how to motivate public schools to apply the practices that have a track record of success. Even worse, in many cases, policies are encouraging smaller schools, especially alternative ones like mine, towards pedagogical and programmatic policies that we know don’t work. It’s time for policy frameworks that fit the schools they are applied to. Accountability should be rigorous and we need some degree of standardization; but it should also be based less on what’s easiest for those who enforce it and more on what is right for the students we serve.

Scott Goldstein is a social studies and ESL teacher at a D.C. public charter school. He can be reached at scottaudc(at)gmail(dot)com.

There are some truths to this piece. However public charter schools still have to adhere to many if not all of the same policies that are of the particular district. When public charter schools apply for certain funds/grants that means they fall into the same category as those public schools within that district and more so under the same schedule too. Leading up to accountability that there has to be some form measurement of student performance as to what is being taught. In turn teachers have to teach to those standards that are being requested by the grantor. No matter how the school operates period! Its simply a form of checks and balance. Many public charter schools (in DC) are charters known to receive money and not do/teach appropriate material and in some cases have done a serious dis-service to students. So policy makers had to put something in place to measure the progress of those schools. Could there be a better way to measure? Maybe so. However, schools, teachers, students, parents, school boards, and districts all have to be held accountable for some pieces to this puzzle.

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Scott G

6/11/2013 12:39:37 pm

I agree that there need to be accountability frameworks in place and that it's a hard balance in drafting policies that strike the balance between individual school needs and standardization. My point here, to re-iterate, is just that the needs of students of all stripes should be taken into account to make those policies and the system has failed to keep pace with charter school accountability in a way that is appropriate to the nature of those schools. Thanks for your comments!

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Audrey Winograd

6/11/2013 06:34:48 am

I am very surprised to learn that there is not either (a) an exception for programs that start at various times, or (b) alternate testing/accountability for those who have been in school (let alone in this country) for such a short time. Accountability issues aside, it skews the research so drastically as to render it invalid.

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Audrey W

6/11/2013 10:46:47 pm

Are there any proposals for testing that would make sense for charter schools and for students who are just commencing their studies when testing begins?

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Scott

6/12/2013 02:46:04 am

The most important think is to have effective pre-testing and post-testing. The reason I called it "what's easiest" for those who interpret the results and not for the students is that they could allow schools to conduct pre and post-testings at the time of their choosing through a system in which the school makes a proposal based on their calendar, mission and student body. Since my school operates on a trimester system, we might choose to have a pre-test and post-test each trimester or select only one trimester a year. In the current scenario, many students who pre-tested in September don't attend this school anymore so it's impossible to get an accurate post-test. Schools should propose how, within reasonably standardized guidelines, they propose to collect the data that the testing service or governing body requests. That request should be vetted by those authorities and then approved so long as it will provide them with accurate data that fits the bill. As I concluded in the article, one of the worst mistakes made frequently in policy more broadly (not just in education) is to try something half way, conclude it hasn't work and go back to the drawing board and, often as not, re-invent the wheel. If we're going to have accurate data on whether new policy has worked, we have to try it long enough and try it for real. That means specifically that everything that wraps around the idea, including accountability frameworks in this case, have to be operating in sync.

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MONICA GRAY is co-founder & president of DreamWakers, an edtech nonprofit. She writes on education innovation and poverty.

LYDIA HALL is a legislative aide in the U.S. House of Representatives, where she works on education, civil rights, and other issues. Lydia is interested in helping to bridge the gap between Capitol Hill and the classroom.

MOSES PALACIOS is an advocate for student rights and works as a Research Manager for the Council of the Great City Schools (CGCS) - a coalition of urban school districts across the nation. He writes on issues regarding the children of immigrants and students learning English as a second language. His views are his own and not representative of CGCS.

PATRICIA RUANE is aresearch associate at an education nonprofit. She is an editor of Recess. ​LESLIE WELSH is a high school social studies teacher in DC. She is an editor of Recess.